When you ask the question, “What is agriculture for?” The usual answer revolves around the symbolic and determined necessity of feeding the human body. In Rwanda, where the majority of the food is cultivated, farmers generate 90% of the economic activity in rural areas, producing food and fuel to improve livelihoods and are key to national food security.
Moreover, farming also has to account for more than simply satisfying people. With each dramatic advancement in the field to maximize production, the key is to ensure the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources, integrate natural biological cycles and controls and practice sustainable agriculture.
This, in Rwanda, means pushing the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions, promoting long-term soil health, plant biodiversity, and resilience to heat and drought—which help improve water and nutrient efficiency and increase crops. To take care of the earth as it does for us.
Emile Twayisenga, a maize and beans farmer in Burera, opened up on Rwanda’s mission to minimize the environmental costs that come up with levelling up, “Before 2021, our only concern was to cultivate as much maize as possible in the little plot of land we had and go to market,” Emile said, “But it wasn’t always a success.”
Emile remembers ‘disorganised’ years of little harvest and desolation with the traditional production he and other farmers in the area faced. “We would wake up early, 6 to 7 am, and leave around midday. But after all that work, some seasons would bring no income for our families, mainly because of the intense sun and dying crops.”
With 61% of Rwanda’s soil being fertile for crop cultivation, Emile disclosed the strategy that they went forward with. The government’s plan for the area sought to educate the farmers on the need to preserve soil for better productivity on their lush lands. A concept that invoked two planting seasons.
The approach titled ‘conservation agriculture’ is based on three principles: Minimum soil disturbance, retention of crop residues or other surface cover, and use of crop rotations to reduce the build-up of weeds, pests, and diseases.
The first two principles require a drastic adaptation of current, traditional farming methods. For the third principle, as farmers in Rwanda often do not have enough land to rotate crops, intercropping is an option.
“I cultivate maize and beans now. That’s new,” Emile launched. “In October, we grow maize; the soil is good. And from February to sometime in the heat seasons, we grow beans. It helps ensure the soil is being used all the time and avoids its staleness.”
The caveat of two seasons is an advantage for farmers. Season ‘A’ runs between October and January, and ‘B’, from February to June. They can grow two diverse sets of crops in a year, making the most of their relatively small plots of land and selling on harvest surplus to make longer-term investments like renting new plots of land or even purchasing livestock.
Maize is grown in Season A and is a major food crop in the country, and most farmers prefer to grow beans in the shorter Season B. With this strategy, Emile’s work has taken a turn.
“We have more technologies now for better plantation and to reel in water efficiently, and hybrid seeds that make our lives easier because they adapt to the climate and require fewer resources that are not on the farm.” he declared, “I mean, we reduced our use of chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers.”
The result is that he could grow food without further damaging Earth’s climate and biodiversity.
Rwanda’s sustainable agriculture addresses many environmental and social concerns but it offers innovative and economically viable opportunities for growers, consumers, policymakers and many others in the entire food system.
“The rainy season was good this year,” Emile said. “The previous years were different. The solar-powered irrigation systems were a good solution. The sun used to be the problem, but now it has become a tool.”
Rwanda’s climate change vulnerability originates in the mountainous character of the country with an inherent susceptibility to soil erosion, combined with a strong reliance on rain-fed agriculture representing 34% of Rwanda’s GDP (2014) and employing 90% of its inhabitants (both directly and indirectly). This leaves the country in a challenging position about climate change adaptation.
As the temperature increases, Rwanda’s historically predictable rainy seasons are becoming increasingly unreliable and short, resulting in more frequent droughts and higher-intensity rains potentially causing progressively significant economic damage to crop yields and infrastructure.
Restoring the soil and improving the productivity of the agricultural land is the overall goal. It means increased resilience to climate change, reduced water erosion, halted land degradation, and increased land productivity.
Emile, like many other farmers, found great relief, safety and incumbent harvest in their agriculture when they also cared about not damaging the earth’s climate. There is a promising chapter of agriculture ahead of us.
“On the same land size, I can harvest around 5 Tonnes of maize. I can pay the school fees for my children and insure ourselves against illness and loss of income,” Emile muttered, “I’m sure climate change won’t hurt us so much anymore.”
